Pitchfork Time

In his campaign and inaugural address, Barack Obama cast himself as a moderate man seeking common ground with conservatives.

Yet his budget calls for the radical restructuring of the U.S. economy, a sweeping redistribution of power and wealth to government and Democratic constituencies. It is a declaration of war on the Right.

The real Obama has stood up and lived up to his ranking as the most left-wing member of the United States Senate.

Barack has no mandate for this. He was even behind McCain when the decisive event that gave him the presidency occurred — the September collapse of Lehman Brothers and the market crash.

Republicans are under no obligation to render bipartisan support to this statist coup d’etat. For what is going down is a leftist power grab that is anathema to their principles and philosophy.

Where the U.S. government usually consumes 21 percent of gross domestic product, this Obama budget spends 28 percent in 2009 and runs a deficit of $1.75 trillion, or 12.7 percent of GDP. That is four times the largest deficit of George W. Bush and twice as large a share of the economy as any deficit run since World War II.

Add that 28 percent of GDP spent by the U.S. government to the 12 percent spent by states, counties, and cities, and government will consume 40 percent of the economy in 2009.

We are not “headed down the road to socialism.” We are there.

Since the budget was released, word has come that the U.S. economy did not shrink by 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter, but 6.2 percent. All the assumptions in Obama’s budget about growth in 2009 and 2010 need to be revised downward, and the deficits revised upward.

Look for the deficit for 2009 to cross $2 trillion.

Who abroad is going to lend us the trillions to finance our deficits without demanding higher interest rates on the U.S. bonds they are being asked to hold? And if we must revert to the printing press to create the money, what happens to the dollar?

As Americans save only a pittance and have lost — in the value of homes, stocks, bonds, and other assets — $15 trillion to $20 trillion since 2007, how can the people provide the feds with the needed money?

In his speech to Congress, Obama promised new investments in energy, education and health care. Every kid is going to get a college degree. We’re going to find a cure for cancer.

Who is going to pay for all this?

The top 2 percent, the filthy rich who got all those Bush tax breaks, say Democrats. But the top 5 percent of income earners already pay 60 percent of U.S. income taxes, while the bottom 40 percent pays nothing.

Those paying a federal tax rate of 35 percent will see it rise to near 40 percent and will lose a fifth of the value of their deductions for taxes, mortgage interest, and charitable contributions.

Yet two-thirds of small businesses are taxed at the same rate as individuals. Consider what this means to the owner of a restaurant and bar in Los Angeles open from noon to midnight, where a husband and wife each put in 80 hours a week.

At year’s end, the couple finds they have actually made a profit of $500,000 that they can take home in salary.

What is the Obama-Schwarzenegger tax take on that salary?

Their U.S. tax rate will have hit 39.6 percent.

Their California income tax will have hit 9.55 percent.

Medicare payroll taxes on the proprietor as both employer and salaried employee will be $14,500. Social Security payroll taxes for the proprietor as both employer and employee will be $13,243.

In short, U.S. and state income and payroll taxes will consume half of all the pair earned for some 8,000 hours of work.

From that ravaged salary they must pay a state sales tax of 8.25 percent, gas taxes for the 50-mile commute, and tens of thousands in property taxes on both their restaurant and home. And, after being pilloried by politicians for having feasted in the Bush era, they are now told the tax deduction they get for contributing to the church is to be cut 20 percent, while millions of Obama voters, who paid no U.S. income tax at all, will be getting a tax cut — i.e., a fat little check — in April.

Any wonder native-born Californians are fleeing the Golden Land?

Markets are not infallible. But the stock market has long been a “lead indicator” of where the economy will be six months from now. What are the markets, the collective decisions of millions of investors, saying?

Having fallen every month since Obama’s election, with January and February the worst two months in history, they are telling us the stimulus package will not work, that Tim Geithner is clueless about how to save the banks, that the Obama budget portends disaster for the Republic.

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10 Responses to Pitchfork Time

What if we all pull out our 45’s and point it at our own temple, and scream, “Stop, or I’ll pull the trigger!!!”??

We have been raping our grandchildren at an increasing rate over the last 40 years, and the current argument is over who will be the primary beneficiary.

What if TARP 1 was simply the OLD BOYS CLUB holding hands, and saving international face? Wasn’t ALL THAT MONEY really to keep the cronies from being scrutinized for lying to the international financial communities?

Sure can’t be a coincidence that apparent political enemies join in a harmonized version of, “Now’s not time to point fingers, now’s only the time to throw money at our problems.”

The US has got to pay BILLIONS to keep from exposing our corrupt financial and political underbelly. To keep foreigners with pitchforks off our TV screens, asking inconvenient questions.

Enter the Democrats, vampires in the night, singing the song, “We’ll go along with this, we’ll help you paper over your sins, we’ll even risk taking some of the blame, if you’ll let us hold the purse for awhile.”

And so many of us prepared to vote for Obama, as Ipecac, hoping to force the Republicans to vomit up their corruption. This was destroyed, of course, by the choice of Palin, giving us false hope that someone on our side might opt for morality and cleaning house.

Oklahomans watched their champion, Tom Coburn, stand grinning expectantly behind McCain, and with a wink and a nod, our “no pork, no earmarks” folks joined in the chant, “emergency, and this is too complicated for the common person to understand. We have to make this one huge porky exception.”

Too complicated for ME to understand? Whatever happened to that little business of “of the people, by the people, and for the people”?

Show me a new faction with pitchforks, and I ask, is it time to point fingers yet? If I don’t hear a resonant echo, then you won’t capture my imagination, and my pitchfork won’t join yours…

‘Yet his budget calls for the radical restructuring of the U.S. economy, a sweeping redistribution of power and wealth to government and Democratic constituencies. It is a declaration of war on the Right.’

Really? Is he declaring war on Christmas too you victim complex jackass?
Maybe Bush radically restructured the economy and Obama is restoring it to it’s previous model.

‘this Obama budget spends 28 percent in 2009 and runs a deficit of $1.75 trillion, or 12.7 percent of GDP. That is four times the largest deficit of George W. Bush’

Bush hid most of the budget, Obama isn’t hiding anything. Maybe that accounts for the size difference?

People aren’t falling for your BS anymore Pat. We’re better educated now and can see past your filter. In a world where we can reply instantly to articles dinosaurs like you are going extinct. Keep on ranting tho, it’s very entertaining.

‘We are not “headed down the road to socialism.” We are there.’

Keep trotting that one out too.

‘As Americans save only a pittance and have lost — in the value of homes, stocks, bonds, and other assets — $15 trillion to $20 trillion since 2007, how can the people provide the feds with the needed money?’

Bush told us to go shopping, spend spend spend. His economic policies created the downfall in assets but you’re upset with Obama?

‘But the top 5 percent of income earners already pay 60 percent of U.S. income taxes, while the bottom 40 percent pays nothing.’

Welcome to the internet Pat, could you provide a link to back up this assertion?

‘At year’s end, the couple finds they have actually made a profit of $500,000 that they can take home in salary.

What is the Obama-Schwarzenegger tax take on that salary?

Their U.S. tax rate will have hit 39.6 percent.

Their California income tax will have hit 9.55 percent.

Medicare payroll taxes on the proprietor as both employer and salaried employee will be $14,500. Social Security payroll taxes for the proprietor as both employer and employee will be $13,243.

In short, U.S. and state income and payroll taxes will consume half of all the pair earned for some 8,000 hours of work.’

I feel so bad for them, I really do*. They are model americans. Of course if they and everyone else paid no taxes there wouldn’t be roads or a sidewalk in front of their restaurant, no public transportation to brings drunk to and fro and probably a whole lot less patrons too. Didn’t Obama already school Sam(not Joe) the (non)Plumber on this?

‘ What are the markets, the collective decisions of millions of investors, saying? …they are telling us the stimulus package will not work’

Really? Is that the only possible explanation? Maybe they’re reacting to the bubble bursting and this is simply a slow correction. Our economy was based on fantasy for many years. We weren’t growing, we weren’t producing more, we were using complex monetary schemes to give the appearance of growth. Those schemes collapsed and so did the fake wealth they appeared to create. People are dumping securities whose value is unknown so they don’t get stuck with worthless paper when the music stops.

‘Since the budget was released, word has come that the U.S. economy did not shrink by 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter, but 6.2 percent. ‘

Your boy did that.

*I really don’t. I’m salaried, I make less than 100K. No one ever lowers my taxes and Obama certainly isn’t raising them. I have no sympathy for anyone else who also is being asked to pay his share. We’re at war damnit! Two wars and those who can help the effort, don’t and then try to make me feel unamerican about it. Blow me all of you.

How would we keep score? Is there a point for each jab of the pitchfork? Two points if we draw blood? Three points if we make sense to a “progressive”? Four if we make the BBC news?

What’s that 2,000 year-old secret sign, again? Trace 3/4 of the infinity symbol on the ground with our toe? We Christians see inklings of a grand design in the universe, and we make good conspiracy theorists.

So, here’s my theory.

They made fun of Bush’s speech, called him a crook, and said he stole the election from day-one.

Instead of being the country that identified and corrected Abu Graibe, they painted Bush, and us, as the nation that was defined by this kind of activity. Their propaganda arms tried to paint us as a nation who was raping women “in the dead of the night”. Constant claims of hundreds of thousands of dead innocent civilians in Iraq.

And who delivered the BAD INTEL about Iraq anyway? The Israeli spies? Or was it the same fine folks who were protecting Valerie Plame and trying to bring our president down? How come we don’t hear more about that cannon that would have been able to shoot a ton of yellowcake into orbit?

While we were busy pontificating about how the rising oil prices were a product of global demand, big liberal money was engineering a financial catastrophe crippling our national transportation. Just a coincidence that they delivered the emergency to us in the Sep-Oct timeframe?

Gore was screaming that the seas will rise 23 feet in 100 years, and we need to use ALL our corn for fuel. Later he said, “I really meant 23 centimeters, but as it turns out, the actual appears to be 4 inches in the next 100 years, if current trends hold.” Just a coincidence that food prices went through the roof, in time for the Sep-Oct timeframe? Food riots yelling, “Blame America?”

Seems the only place they mis-calculated was on the surge, thinking it would not show fruit in Iraq until the Nov-Dec timeframe.

So, we hear screaming that TARP 1 has to be passed EXACTLY ON OCT 1st, and that HOURS COUNT. So if the problem had been 20 years in the making, who leaked it to the international news, to start the global credit crisis, in the Sep-Oct timeframe?

Then after the election, we see that oil scarcity was manufactured by big money. We see the rush to use ALL THE CORN was temporary. The alarmists claiming a total collapse in Iraq were exaggerating. They even tell us that the huge TARP 1 deadline of “first week of OCTOBER” may have been premature, and might have waited until after the election. It even appears as if certain US politicians helped bring about some of the bank collapses, that may have not needed to happen.

But then, part of what confuses us is that so many of these politicians seem to be more dedicated to the political “ruling class” than to party affiliation, so it’s hard to tell who was responsible for what, looking only along party lines.

So…

We pitchfork people, before we start keeping score, are going to have to figure out what game we are in.

It was not that long ago that Mr. Buchanan called for an industrial policy for this nation. Now the President presents one and Mr. Buchanan shifts the ground to an ideological argument. What might be interesting to read, were it to exist, would be anything remotely resembling a ‘conservative’ alternative that would attempt to realistically address regulatory policy, health care, the financial crisis, unemployment, and energy policy. If there are ‘conservative’ ideas for dealing with these matters, let us hear them. They cannot be limited to ‘lower taxes on the rich and capital gains’ and ‘reduce the size of government’ and ‘eliminate regulation to enhance prosperity and creativity’ and such. Because those policies are what got us there. The lending done to poor people was a tiny and insignificant part of the bubble that has burst. If ‘conservatives’ are about to march with pitchforks about the current economic crisis, they should know where the people who took the money are… in rich counties that vote Republican. Unless there is evidence to the contrary, of course, in which case, it should be produced. Disagree, fine, but produce a better alternative or acknowledge that you are merely carping.

A fun conspiracy story that I’ve only recently discovered is described in documentary “The Money Masters”. You can find it on YouTube. According to the story presented in this (really long) documentary, central banking is a scam in which an officially sanctioned, but private, banking cartel manipulates money supply in order to concentrate wealth. I know there are a lot of conservatives who are distrustful of our central bank The “Federal” Reserve. Anyone care to put recent events in the context of this conspiracy? How is the effort to centralize economic power in the hands of the state connected to the effort to centralize wealth in hands of the money masters?

“What might be interesting to read, were it to exist, would be anything remotely resembling a ‘conservative’ alternative that would attempt to realistically address regulatory policy, health care, the financial crisis….”

Boy Greg did you ever hit any number of nails on the head including the foregoing one especially. Don’t know that I agree with you that the subprime lending was a “tiny” contributor to all of what’s going on, but that might be quibbling.

I suspect that you will not see any kind of real alternatives come up with by the Republicans or the “conservatives,” however. If power imposes responsibility on a party—and I think you see that with Obama especially disappointing his hard Left base on any number of things, then the opposite is also true. And if over the last eight years the Republicans and the “conservative” mainstream could never come up with alternatives when they *were* in power, just think how irresponsible they are going to be now.

It’s been an almost purely reactionary party and entity essentially, and by definition same are always really more comfortable in the out-of-power opposition. And they belong there so long as they stay reactionary.

Forget about industrial policy; I’d like to hear about an obesity policy. I hear a lot of talk about it being a major problem in this country, but I have yet to hear a detailed plan that uses enlightened federal programs to fight this epidemic. The president is leading by example– playing basketball and showing off his pecks– but what is he actually doing to make Americans eat less and exercise more? Does he not care about fat people? Some people are just too out of shape to help themselves, especially when confronted by the cunning of greedy fast food franchisees. What’s worse is that those few remaining skinny people continue to flaunt their vitality and their lithe figures. Their well-being is an affront to the rest of us.

The world has changed, and we no longer live in a world where people have to exert their bodies to feed themselves. Therefore, it’s time that people accept that the only solution to the weakness and corruption of human nature is collective action guided by wise and caring leaders. Mr President, it is time for solutions.

rawshark, maybe you shouldn’t be reading the magazine Pat Buchanan co-founded then. You deride PJB for not linking to where he got his information (“Welcome to the internet Pat, could you provide an assertion?”, I guess forgetting the fact that Pat is not an internet columnist, but a nationally syndicated columnist whose articles are in newspapers) then resort to ad hominem attacks on the man. Where are your arguments? You say you are more educated than PJB. How? You say, talking about Californians, “I feel so bad for them, I really do. They are model americans. Of course if they and everyone else paid no taxes there wouldn’t be roads or a sidewalk in front of their restaurant, no public transportation to brings drunk to and fro and probably a whole lot less patrons too. Didn’t Obama already school Sam(not Joe) the (non)Plumber on this?” Well, sir, I am a Californian, along with millions of others, and not all of us are from Hollywood and San Francisco. And I’m sure a man of your intelligence realizes that government doesn’t need a 39.6 percent federal income tax rate to build roads, sidewalks, and public transportation. And I’m sure a man as learned as you would know that the federal government doesn’t even receive half of its revenues from the income tax. You also blame PJB for covering for Bush: “Your boy did that.” Sir, if you believe Pat was a fan of Bush, you obviously haven’t read much of him over the last 8 years. Finally, the advertisement at the top of this page says that this is the premier journal for thinking conservatives. Please, this garbage is okay at Townhall.com or The Nation but don’t fill TAC with this.